Tz'utujil - Orientation

Identification.
The Tz'utujil are a Mayan population inhabiting
Guatemala's central highland region. The various Tz'utujil
communities tend to be separated by high volcanoes, precipitous cliffs,
and expansive lake surfaces. In part reflecting geographical obstacles
to easy interaction, the primary linkage between the communities is
linguistic rather than social. Tz'utujil refer to themselves as
"Vinuk" (lit., twenty; named being), which can be glossed
to mean "the people."

Location.
The Tz'utujil communities are clustered along the south and west
shores of Lake Atitlán, as well as just to the south of the Lake
Atitlán basin in the town of Chicacao. In addition,
Tz'utujil speakers constitute minority populations in several
nearby non-Mayan coastal communities. Certainly the defining feature of
the Tz'utujil territory is Lake Atitlán, which lies at an
average elevation of 1,545 meters above sea level. The communities along
the shore of the lake occupy a border zone between tropical and
mesothermal environments. Rains are monsoonal, with the wet season
running from May to November. In its natural state, the vegetation is
primarily chaparral and oak-pine forest, although much of the arable
land has been diverted to the cultivation of maize and coffee.

Demography.
In 1994, following nearly a century of explosive population growth,
there were approximately 70,000 Tz'utujil. In contrast, a
post-Conquest demographic collapse triggered by the introduction of Old
World diseases brought about a decline in population that did not bottom
out until around 1780, when the number of Tz'utujil was about 10
percent of its pre-Conquest number. Although the Tz'utujil
population would not regain its pre-Conquest level until the mid-1960s,
since that time it has more than doubled.

Linguistic Affiliation.
The name "Tz'utujil" means "flower of the
maize plant." Tz'utujil is a language of the Greater
Quichean Branch of the Eastern Division of Mayan languages and is most
closely related to Kaqchikel, K'iche', Sakapulteko, and
Sipakapense. Even among the various Tz'utujil communities, there
is lexical, phonological, morphological, and syntactic variation in the
use of the language. Exemplifying that variation, the people of Santiago
Atitlán claim that only they speak the true form of the language,
what they invariably refer to as
"Ktz'oj'bal,"
the
language. In contrast, they claim that the people of San Pedro la
Laguna speak Pedrano, those of San Juan speak Juanero, and so on. In
addition to the indigenous language, more than half of the
Tz'utujil are at least conversant in Spanish.